Micheline Chau, president and COO of Lucasfilm, has retired after two decades with the company, Lucasfilm announced on Wednesday.

Kathleen Kennedy, who joined Lucasfilm as co-chairman in June, will serve as interim president. The heads of the various departments, such as Industrial Light & Magic animation, LucasArts (gaming) and licensing, will report to Kennedy for the time being. (italics added)

I only thought this worth posting about here because Micheline Chau has had operational oversight for LucasArts since 2003. And as many of us know LucasArts has had three presidents in the past nine years. It's my personal belief that she has had something to do with the relatively short tenures of the last two presidents, Darrell Rodriguez and Paul Meegan and probably Jim Ward as well. I've got nothing factual to back up that belief other than the 2-year stints of the last two LucasArts presidents.

Whatever the case, now that Ms. Chau is out or on her way out it looks like Kathleen Kennedy (no idea what experience she has with games industry) will most likely be involved with selecting a new president for LucasArts. Since Ms. Kennedy is a total unknown for me I don't know if this bodes well or ill for LucasArts. In my view I favor the unknown instead of Ms. Chau, given her poor track record. It gives me a bit of hope that LucasArts has a better chance to get some stable leadership that will work to improve LucasArts' product offerings. Of course only time will tell.

DarthParametric

09-10-2012 07:15 AM

"Kathleen Kennedy (born June 5, 1953) is an American film producer. In 1981 she co-founded Amblin Entertainment with her husband, Frank Marshall, and Steven Spielberg. [...] Kennedy is the second-most successful film producer of all time (after Steven Spielberg) in terms of domestic box office receipts with totals at just over $5 billion."

We'll find out in the next year if Micheline Chau was one of the problems there. I'm losing faith in the LucasFilm and LucasArts company and I'm not sure if this will help or not.

Lynk Former

09-11-2012 02:16 AM

So does this mean they'll release the original versions of the movies on Blu-ray now or at least undo the damage that's being caused to the movies over the years? I mean, the BD version of Blu-ray has all that walkie-talkie nonsense removed from it... :carms:

I know, it'll never happen, they'll just release another version of the movies later on, probably 4K versions and then change even more stuff in that version.

Yes, yes, Kathleen Kennedy is a veteran producer of some well known films and George Lucas has designated her as the heir to his empire. I've no idea what that means for LucasArts however since George Lucas has a similar background in film making. I really would not be surprised to see LucasArts drop all pretenses at publishing and developing video games/interactive entertainment and switch to a licensor only role. While LucasArts has announced Star Wars 1313 and appears to have another SW game in the works I really think those games, if they make it all the way thru production, will have to do well in order for LucasArts to continue on in the same form. I really wish I had better insight into Kathleen Kennedy's experience and views on LucasArts and the overall gaming industry so I could get a better sense of the future. I will meditate on this. :yoda: